Peter Jackson just finished broadcasting his The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug event, and he had plenty of new information to give about his Hobbit sequel, along with a few first looks and even scenes from the film.
Any Tolkien fan can tell you that Peter Jackson is all about fan service, but in his special The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug live event, he went above and beyond by giving a lengthy “let’s explore the building and chat” video for the fans, during which he premiered some brand new footage and behind the scenes looks at his long-anticipated Hobbit inbetweequel.
Die-hard fans who bought The Hobbit on Blu-Ray had access to the event, which was hosted by The Hobbit’s official website. The cast began with an introduction to Peter Jackson, who was cleverly hiding behind “tomorrow’s newspaper” and claimed to be broadcasting the video “from the future.”
He then took fans through to the motion capture studio and the pre-viz lab, where he gave a quick glimpse of what Smaug the dragon will eventually look and move like. Since the film is still months from being complete, the special effects still proved to be in the earlier phases, but once the broadcast landed in the editing bay, we got to take a few closer looks at some of the film’s most important moments.
A number of the film’s stars virtually stopped by to say “hi” to the famed Lord of the Rings director, including Orlando Bloom, Stephen Fry, and even self-proclaimed “number one Tolkien fan” Stephen Colbert, whose inclusion in the broadcast lends more credence to the fan theory that he was asked to film a cameo in the trilogy’s second installment.
In any case, we know what you’re interested in seeing, the footage from the film. Thanks to the good people at CBM, we now have video footage of the new glimpses from the film below. Immediately following the video is a series of screencaps that we’ve chosen in order to highlight our favorite parts. Enjoy!
Update: Since our main video of the footage was taken down, we’ve added a few more videos from the broadcast to give you a full sense of what it was like to experience the live event first-hand. Enjoy!
Update 2: At the request of Warner Bros., all of our videos and images have been taken down. If you’re sad because you missed the goods, just follow us on Twitter and on Facebook so that you’ll be the first to see the next big thing that pops up!
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